“But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” Genesis 3:3
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 14:12 & 16:12
For a few months now I’ve been praying quite fervently about one thing in particular. And for those few months, the Lord has been telling me to wait, to be patient and to trust in His perfect timing.
So what do I do? I go and disobey Him. Did I do something that would be considered a sin on the face of it? No. What I did wasn’t ‘bad’ in and of itself, but it was the “heart“, or “spirit“, behind what I did. I tried to get ahead of the Lord by taking matters into my own hands. I tried to get a situation happening in my favour rather than waiting on the Lord like He told me to. I disobeyed Him – that was what I did wrong. I failed in the flesh.
What Eve did wasn’t ‘bad’ in and of itself, she simply ate something. Adam and Eve still needed to eat, so she ate a piece of fruit. Nothing wrong with that is there? Except that she was forbidden to eat from that particular tree. The Lord told her not to eat from that particular tree in the garden, but her flesh got the better of her and she ate it. The “heart“, or “spirit“, behind her decision was disobedience caused by the seed of doubt planted by the serpent. Yes, she was tempted and tricked in the flesh by Satan, but she could have resisted and said ‘no’, much like I could have. She fell for the lie of Satan, that she wouldn’t die, even though God said death would come. “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:” Genesis 3:4
But neither of us did. We both disobeyed God.
And look at the death and destruction that one simple act of disobedience by Adam and Eve caused!
How many things do we do thinking that they aren’t sinful in and of themselves, but are actually sin because we are disobeying the Lord?
“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.” Proverbs 21:2
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 14:12 & 16:25
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 14:12 & 16:25
How often do we do things thinking we know best when we are actually ignoring what God says?
How often do we try to short circuit God and get ahead of Him and His ways by doing things our own way? I’ll take a guess and say that it happens far more than we realise, or care to admit.
But the Lord did use this ‘failure of the flesh’ of mine to teach me about His grace, so some good came of it, because “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 and it glorifies God because I am now able to share about His grace with others.
But just as we sin, we also have a Saviour that died so that we could be forgiven. Let us examine ourselves and our “hearts” (or spirits) and see if there be any hidden sin that we need to confess and repent of in order to be forgiven. For “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Amen! 1 John 1:9 ❤
One last thing. Here is another post about ‘heart’ issues.
eternityisforever 